SHOPPERS, workers and residents in Wokingham want to see a department store and more independent traders in town, according to a poll by the Wokingham Times.

In a town centre straw poll we asked 40 people to pick the key ingredient to boost the popularity of the town as a retail centre from a department store, more niche shops, pedestrianisation, better nightlife and less traffic.

The department store proved the most popular choice, although the need for a greater variety of niche shops was also made clear by many respondents.

A better nightlife was easily the least popular option amongst townsfolk.

Last week The Times quizzed publicans and passers by on what they thought was needed to revitalise Wokingham.

From that we created a ‘wish list' of the five most popular suggestions which we put to 40 more people out and about in the town centre this week.

We showed them the list and asked them to rank the suggestions in order of importance, from one (most important) to five (least).

Almost a third of people quizzed listed a department store as the thing they most wanted Wokingham to have, and many of these said if the town had a department store they would favour Wokingham over nearby shopping centres such as Bracknell and Reading.

Also scoring highly, and coming in a close second, was the niche shops category.

People said they missed the individual shops the town used to have, and like using the ones — including Bookends, Fame and Rococo — which are still with us.

This category was given a ‘one' or ‘two' by two thirds of people.

Better nightlife was at the bottom of the wish list for almost half of those questioned. A total of 17 people rated it as the thing they least wanted to see in the town, and a further 10 people gave it a number four.

This option was only ranked top by eight per cent of those asked. Although it was at the bottom of the wish list, a lot of people did say they would like to see a theatre or cinema in the town centre.

Many also said the town had plenty of pubs and restaurants and did not think any more would bring in more people to the town.

There was not much difference between the pedestrianisation and less traffic categories.

There was neither a strong desire to have one or the other, and neither was there desire to not have it.

But pedestrianisation did just beat less traffic to the post, with a third of people giving it a number three rating.

But we still want to know what the residents of Wokingham would like to see in the town centre.

We have had more response from readers this week in comparison to last week, but we still want to hear how people think the town centre can be improved.

l Let us know what you think the town centre needs to stop shoppers going to Reading or Bracknell.